“I try to do stuff for my communities because I’m still trying so hard to impress mum and dad, and just because they’ve been gone 15 years now I cannot be sure they’re not watching me from the sky somewhere”. ANTONIO DI DIO continues his Short History of Kindness series.

In the early ’70s we’d get a sermon every week – I loved the storytelling. 

Some of them I hated, especially the ones with brimstone. Whatever it was, it sounded awful. 

My favourite was when the wealthy dudes dressed in rich brocade (again, no idea what it was but sounded schmick) would donate heaps to the church and smugly gave each other plaudits and shared Pontius Pilate’s mobile number, then criticised a poor, old woman who gave so little, just copper coins. 

Jesus, rather bravely, had a go at them, and said that what this woman was donating, represented a far greater pain to her, a much greater percentage of her meagre possessions, that what brocade-face had given.

I think of that story often, remembering sitting uncomfortably next to dad in his only suit in church, rumbling in his pockets for non-existent change. 

Later on he got a bit Bolshie about attendance, and would only go to mass if he knew I would be playing Amazing Grace and/or How Great Thou Art on the organ during the service. These tunes would make the 200-metre trip to St Patrick’s more worthy of his time than this week’s episodes of Countdown and the footy replay. 

When I arked up and said: “Not again, the punters are typecasting me musically”, mum would plead that dad might burn in Eternal Damnation just because I wanted to play some racy cool tunes, and my meticulous post-communion rendition of that modernist The Lord Is My Shepherd would be followed directly by a bolt of lightning above our house while dad was enjoying Abba and copping brimstone sandwiches (whatever they were) for infinity. 

But, like the idiot I’ve been all my life, it took me decades to connect the dots. My friends Damien, Jeev, Andrew, Walter, Iain, Tim, Chandi and many others wander around the lake every week solving the world’s problems (struggling just now) and I marvel at them. 

They give of their time, their energy, their passion, for so many causes and concerns. Whenever my brain’s lifelong chronic shortage of Ritalin leads to a new-fangled project or requires workhorses for an old one, they are there.  

I can always rely on them. Jeev, I need you to mentor yet another young person. Tim, can you see the eardrum of every kid in Canberra on your only free weekend this year. Walter, can you hold the world on your shoulders for a month while I do important stuff like lay in this lonely-looking hammock. No doubt your buddies are the same.

Notice anything about these guys? Aside from wearing faces that only a mother could love and the kind of unfortunate personal odour that evokes memories of brimstone (kindness prevents me talking teeth here) – they are all men, all of a certain age, of a certain socio-economic bracket, of a certain postcode. 

My mate Kerrie is the most generous person, and although she ain’t Karl Marx, she understands so well “to everyone what they need, from everyone what they can give”. Not so much as the basis for an extraordinary revolution and the odd pogrom, but because the very nature of volunteering, charity and giving to community is predicated on a person’s ability to do so.

I try to do stuff for my communities because I’m still trying so hard to impress mum and dad, and just because they’ve been gone 15 years now I cannot be sure they’re not watching me from the sky somewhere during the commercial breaks on Permanent John Wayne and Other Lesser Cowboys TV (assuming dad’s in Heaven). 

It took me too many years to realise that young people, people struggling and juggling mortgages and families and health and work and so many other challenges – for them to even turn up to a meeting to contribute their view, often in a shy and quiet way, maybe on Zoom while doing chores – had given more than I had, that day or ever. 

Kindness comes from understanding and, maybe 20 years late, I’ve figured out that some of the greatest contributions to our community come not from entitled big, old, white men like me, but from the gifts of a couple of hours here and there, from those who do not have a minute to spare, but give anyway.

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader and nerd. There is more of his Kindness on citynews.com.au